“President Obama made a big deal last week about his purported federal spending freeze, but not enough has been said about how meager the supposed savings actually are. Historical context shows that any savings from this public-relations gimmick will be tiny. Frugality, apparently, is a concept Democrats have a hard time understanding.”

“Climatologists have puzzled over why global average temperatures have stayed roughly flat in the past decade, despite a long-term warming trend. New research suggests that lower levels of water vapor in the stratosphere may partly explain the anomaly.

The study, appearing in the journal Science, points out that the concentration of water vapor in the stratosphere has dropped about 10% in the past decade”

Click the image & read the rest:Click here for the published abstract.

The WSJ, being (other than the opinion page) quantifiably more Leftist than the New York Times (published paper found here), predictably includes in this report the following bit of alarmist propaganda:

“Not only is water vapor the planet's most abundant greenhouse gas, it also is known to amplify the warming effect of other such gases, including carbon dioxide.”

This positive water vapor feedback mechanism -- without which, nobody could even pretend there is any cause for alarm -- is NOT KNOWN to be a fact, it is an ASSUMPTION on the part of the alarmists. What IS a fact is that study after study (abstract found here) is increasingly proving this assumption to be not merely wrong, but completely upside down!

Additionally, the Leftist WSJ pimps for a “long-term warming trend” while willfully ignoring a much longer-term cooling trend in both the Arctic AND the Antarctic. Click here and here for direct links to all the citations in the previous two charts.

“Another day, another IPCC-gate. Just last week, it came out that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based its alarming statement that massive Himalayan ice cap will largely disappear in 2035 upon nothing but hearsay and propaganda.

Every scientist who has studied the glaciers there knows that they are exceedingly thick and even if it warmed substantially, they will be around for centuries. Under pressure, the IPCC finally ‘fessed up that it was lying for political purposes. Murari Lal, a senior author (who holds a PhD in Geophysics) told the London Daily Mail ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.’”

Friday, January 29, 2010

“Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, blamed the United States and developed countries for not halting climate change and said that the global economy should immediately abandon its reliance on the American dollar, according to an audiotape released Friday by the broadcaster Al Jazeera.

‘Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,’ Mr. bin Laden was quoted as saying in a report on Al Jazeera’s English-language Web site. ‘All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis.’”

Click the image & read the rest:This strikes me as a very natural fit among totalitarians.

The rhetoric is utterly indistinguishable from the IPCC, Barack Obama, Al Gore, James Hansen and all the rest. I fully expect this crowd to warmly embrace Bin Laden as their new found friend and ally in the battle against capitalism, prosperity, civilization and freedom.

“In the wake of the Massachusetts Miracle last week (‘The other Boston Massacre’), President Obama adopted a populist mantle, claiming he was going to ‘fight’ Wall Street. It was either that or win another Nobel Peace Prize.

Now the only question is which Goldman Sachs crony he'll put in charge of this task.

If Obama plans to hold Wall Street accountable for its own bad decisions, it will be a first for the Democrats.

For the past two decades, Democrats have specialized in insulating financial giants from the consequences of their own high-risk bets. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs alone have been rescued from their risky bets by unwitting taxpayers four times in the last 15 years.”

“under current law, federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid measured as a share of GDP will rise from 4 percent today to 12 percent in 2050 and 19 percent in 2082—which, as a share of the economy, is roughly equivalent to the total amount that the federal government spends today…

Federal spending on programs other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—including national defense and a wide variety of domestic programs—is likely to contribute far less, if anything, to the upward trend in federal outlays as a share of GDP.”

ObamaCare, of course, is a GIANT EXPANSION of entitlements which will only make matters DRAMATICALLY WORSE! We know Obama is NOT going to give up on ObamaCare. And, we know Obama will, tonight, as always, LIE through his nicotine stained teeth.

I have often said that “the entire so-called Liberal ideology is pure mythology”.

And, that explains why Dim pundits (and Blogspot commentators) virtually never substantiate their assertions -- they CAN’T! Little Robbie Reich is typical of this fact. Robbie Reich used to host a blog wherein comments were allowed. I used to have fun debunking his unsubstantiated rhetoric with substantiated, quantitative facts. Then, one of Robbie’s sycophants suggested that if Robbie continued to allow comments, he would be unable to get his message out. Little ol’ me was cited as the primary -- if not exclusive -- reason why. And, so, Little Robbie Reich stopped allowing comments at his Blogspot (and, quite a bit later, migrated to a different blogging platform -- where comments are still not allowed).

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

IF you actually watch Obama’s State of the Union speech, you might be able to turn an otherwise tortuous event into something approaching mildly amusing by playing BARACK Bingo.

Simply click the image to enlarge it, print it and mark off the clichés as you hear them until you spell BARACK. You can then turn off your TV with the certain knowledge that you have “learned” as much as you ever were going to from THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER!

If you’re lucky, Obama will summarize his speech in the first few moments, you’ll yell BARACK BINGO, and you can then free yourself to do something more productive (or entertaining) with your evening.

Or, you can do what I do -- turn off your TV anytime this narcissistic clown is on. In the last year, that policy has saved me a small fortune on my electric bills!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

“A top House Democrat [Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.)] on Friday said his committee was preparing to recommend ‘abolishing’ mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and rebuilding the U.S. housing-finance system from scratch…

Some Republicans have argued that the companies should ultimately be reduced in size and privatized…

[Duh!!!]

But several industry groups and academics have suggested that the government is likely to continue playing at least some role in the future of the companies.

One such report came from analysts at Standard & Poor's this past week. ‘It's hard for us to imagine’ how enough capital could be attracted to replace Fannie and Freddie with stand-alone private companies that would be able to offer low-cost funding for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, the analysts wrote.”

[And, isn’t that your FIRST FREAKING CLUE that this home ownership entitlement mentality is an unsustainable FANTASY which will ALWAYS end badly?]

Click the image & read the rest:Click here to enlarge the image.Click here for more MUST SEE commentary.

The following is a very brief reminder of the pertinentfacts regarding the collapse of Fannie & Freddie:

This emerging story is a powerful example of theenormous corruption behind all the scare mongering.Please! Read the entire article (and all the links)!

Quoting Christopher Booker at the U.K. Telegraph(I inserted the links & the emphasis is mine):

“Last week, the IPCC, led by its increasingly controversial [and hideously unqualified] chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was forced to issue an unprecedented admission: the statement in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 had no scientific basis, and its inclusion in the report reflected a ‘poor application’ of IPCC procedures…

What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim – now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC – has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.”

Click the image (of Pachauri) & read the rest:Click here for all my posts on GlacierGate/PachauriGate.Click here and “follow the money” -- AGAIN.Click here for some basic climate change science.

For decades, and to this day, Democrats have ladled entitlement program on entitlement program, bureaucracy upon bureaucracy, debt upon debt until the whole American economy is wobbling on its foundation…

Every one of their programs has failed. Every one. And they are about to touch off a catastrophic implosion. The modern Democrats are not smarter than a fifth grader, certainly not one who has read and understands the Constitution and The Bill of Rights.

The Democrat Party must be politically eradicated in the next series of elections if we are to return fiscal sanity and constitutionality to the federal government. We must politically crush the party of economic insanity before it's too late.

“Once again, the people have spoken, and this time they quoted what Dick Cheney said to Pat Leahy.

Less than two weeks ago, The New York Times said that so much as a ‘tighter-than-expected’ victory for Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley would incite ‘soul-searching among Democrats nationally,’ which sent Times readers scurrying to their dictionaries to look up this strange new word, ‘soul.’

A close win for Coakley, the Times said, would constitute ‘the first real barometer of whether problems facing the party’ will affect the 2010 elections.”

“Republican Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts Senate race was lifted by strong support from union households, in a sign of trouble for President Barack Obama and Democrats who are counting on union support in the 2010 midterm elections.

A poll conducted on behalf of the AFL-CIO found that 49% of Massachusetts union households supported Mr. Brown in Tuesday's voting, while 46% supported Democrat Martha Coakley. The poll conducted by Hart Research Associates surveyed 810 voters.”

“Liberals are now trying to sell the fantasy, and maybe even convince themselves, that ObamaCare isn't among the reasons Senator-elect Scott Brown is headed to Washington. One of the only Massachusetts exit polls doesn't corroborate the story: Rasmussen reports that 51% of voters on Tuesday were opposed and 47% in favor—41% "strongly opposed" and just 25% "strongly in favor." Health care was the decisive factor for 56%.

Perhaps that's because Bay State residents know something the rest of the country doesn't. In 2006, then GOP Governor Mitt Romney brought about a universal insurance plan that bears an uncanny resemblance to ObamaCare—and a meticulous new study confirms that the result has been high costs in return for minimal benefits.”

“Marlene Connolly is a 73-year-old Massachusetts Democrat who cast her first vote for a Republican in supporting Scott Brown. Her quote and story comes to us via the New York Times, but she stands out for this reason: She shows us that those who actually cast ballots in the Bay State did so because they are frustrated with the administration's unrestrained federal spending and failed economic recovery policies.”

“On Jan. 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health-care reform. ‘If Republicans want to campaign against what we've done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have.’

The bravado lasted three days. When Obama campaigned in Boston on Jan. 17 for Obamacare supporter Martha Coakley, not once did he mention the health-care bill. When your candidate is sinking, you don't throw her a millstone.”

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

“One paragraph, buried in 3,000 pages of reports and published almost three years ago, has humbled the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Facing global outcry, Rajendra Pachauri backed down and apologised today for a disputed IPCC claim that there was a very high chance the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035.”

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

“A top Senate Democrat for the first time Tuesday acknowledged that the party is prepared to deal with health care reform by using a controversial legislative tactic known as the ‘nuclear option.’

With Republican Scott Brown seizing victory in the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senate, Democrats are under pressure to quickly pass health care reform before he arrives -- since Brown will break the party's 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority.”

“India's senior glaciologist VK Raina today said the chief of the UN climate body should apologise to the scientist fraternity for dubbing their work on melting of Himalayan glaciers as ‘voodoo science’.

‘The IPCC had dumped our report that the glaciers have not retreated abnormally. Now, with the truth out in open, the IPCC should dump its own report which was based on mere speculation,’ Raina told PTI.”

Those familiar with the undeniable eugenics based roots of Planned Parenthood know that it is no accident that this “Super Center” death camp -- like virtually all others -- will be located in an overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic part of Houston.

So-called “Liberals” are outraged by the prospect of a Wal-Mart “Super Center”. But, they happily embrace a death camp “Super Center” (targeting minorities). Clearly, so-called “Liberalism” is a mental disorder!

Hitler’s death camps could not begin to measure up to the death camps of our own so-called “Liberals”.

As for when human life begins, the science couldn’t be more clear:

The beginning of life is -- by definition -- a transformational event. And, the ONLY transformational event is when two haploid cells merge to form a diploid cell -- at conception. EVERYTHING beyond that point is a transitional event which varies in timing with each pregnancy. Every other attempt to define when life begins is a purely political contrivance whose sole intent is to rationalize homicide. I choose the word homicide carefully. Because, even with abortion, there are certain instances where there is such a thing as “justifiable homicide” -- for example when the mother’s life is clearly in danger.

But, the overwhelming majority of abortion homicides are committed for nothing more than convenience. This link describes one of the most appalling examples of homicidal convenience.

P.S.) I am a lifelong agnostic. My view are informed exclusively by science, reason and justice.

“Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. ‘I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers,’ says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown.”

Last season, 24 went all PC on us. The good guys were Muslims and the bad guys were Americans. Yeah, yeah, I know. There are good Muslims and there are bad Americans and everything in between. But, on balance, the real world has heroic Americans and our heroic allies fighting profoundly evil Islamic Jihadists. We are fighting for a profoundly good cause and they are fighting for a profoundly evil cause.

The season premiere of 24 last night suggests we’re in for more of the same this year. Last night I saw a validation of Obama’s fantasy that the profoundly evil thugs running the show in Iran are reasonable people with whom we can successfully negotiate (but, only if the glorious United Nations leads the way). And, once again, the bad guys are (apparently) Americans.

Sigh…I’m not sure how much more of this cheap (and deadly) propaganda posing as entertainment I’m willing to watch.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

The IPCC has egregiously misled the general public as regards the rate of ice melt in the northern hemisphere (and just about everything else). The FACT is that there is nothing even remotely unusual about the rate of the ice melt. Don’t miss the supplementary links following this latest story.

Quoting The U.K. Times Online:

“A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it…

Some scientists have questioned how the IPCC could have allowed such a mistake into print. Perhaps the most likely reason was lack of expertise.”

Click the image & read the rest:Note that the IPCC “lack of expertise” begins at the TOP!Click here and here for directly related posts.Click here and here to debunk ice melt hysteria.Click here for another infamous IPCC deception.Click here for some basic climate change science.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Quoting Charles Krauthammer at The Washington Post(I inserted the last three links & the emphasis is mine):

“What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world. Now President Obama's approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent -- and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an (elected) president's second year.

A year ago, he was leader of a liberal ascendancy that would last 40 years (James Carville). A year ago, conservatism was dead (Sam Tanenhaus). Now the race to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in bluest of blue Massachusetts is surprisingly close, with a virtually unknown state senator bursting on the scene by turning the election into a mini-referendum on Obama and his agenda, most particularly health-care reform…

Thursday, January 14, 2010

“Riding a wave of opposition to Democratic health-care reform [more like health care tyranny], GOP upstart Scott Brown is leading in the U.S. Senate race, raising the odds of a historic upset that would reverberate all the way to the White House, a new poll shows…

if Brown’s momentum holds, he is poised to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy - and to halt health-care reform, the issue the late senator dubbed ‘the cause of my life.’

Yet even in the bluest state, it appears Kennedy’s quest for universal health care has fallen out of favor, with 51 percent of voters saying they oppose the ‘national near-universal health-care package’ and 61 percent saying they believe the government cannot afford to pay for it.”

“A year into his tenure, a majority of Americans would already vote against Pres. Obama if the '12 elections were held today, according to a new survey.

The Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll shows 50% say they would probably or definitely vote for someone else. Fully 37% say they would definitely cast a ballot against Obama. Meanwhile, just 39% would vote to re-elect the pres. to a 2nd term, and only 23% say they definitely would do so.”

Click the image & read the rest:Click here for several hundred more bits of evidence.

“In the face of rising unemployment and record-breaking deficits, policy experts at the National Center for Public Policy Research are criticizing the Obama Administration for awarding a half million dollar grant from the economic stimulus package to Penn State Professor Michael Mann, a key figure in the Climategate controversy…

‘This misuse of stimulus money illustrates why tax cuts are a better way to stimulate the economy than letting the government decide where to spend taxpayer dollars. As is often the case, political considerations corrupt the distribution of government funds,’ said Deneen Borelli, a fellow with the National Center's Project 21 black leadership network.”

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

This article in the Daily Mail, describing “a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years” has certainly stirred the AGW hysteria pot. Click here and here for the peer reviewed science behind the story.

But, what if I told you the planet is already 25 years into a global cooling trend? Well, if we’re talking about the annual rate of global temperature change, even the government funded alarmists at NOAA know -- for certain -- this is the case.

2/19/10 Update & Correction:On closer inspection, I find I originally misinterpreted the NOAA chart below. The Y axis -- described as “Temperature Change” -- does NOT describe an annual change from one year to the next. Rather, it describes, after ENSO-adjustment, the total (warming biased) temperature change from the year on the X axis all the way through 2008.

Therefore, while the chart does clearly depict a recent flattening of the previous warming trend and even a recent cooling trend, it does not describe -- as I previously thought -- a 25 year decline in the annual rate of global temperature change.

2) Click here for a game changing temperature trend revelation found at the intersection of the NOAA report cited in this post and recent admissions from the climate scientist at the center of the ClimateGate scandal.

Examine this NOAA chart.Click the image to enlarge it:Click here & jump to page 23 to find the above chart.Be patient. This is a very large (15MB) file.Or, see the relevant section as extracted by the U.K. Met Office.

“Scientists and environmentalists have warned that coral reefs may not be able to recover from the damage caused by climate change and that these unique environments could soon be lost forever. Now, this research adds weight to the argument that reducing levels of fishing is a viable way of protecting the world’s most delicate aquatic ecosystems.”

Of all the incredibly dishonest climate change hysteria mongering, coral reef hysteria may be the most dishonest of all. All of life is far more resilient and far more adaptable than the alarmists care to (publicly) admit.

The article states that:“Coral reefs have been on the planet for over 400 million years.”

The alarmists at GISS acknowledge that -- at the time of the last glacial maximum (about 18 to 20 thousand years ago) -- sea levels were about 120 meters (394 feet) LOWER than today. According to this source, “[t]ropical corals do not grow at depths of over 50 meters (160 ft).” Ergo, ALL the tropical coral reefs we see today were ABOVE WATER a mere 20,000 years ago. And yet, somehow, tropical coral reefs survived! Or, more accurately, the organisms which produce coral reefs survived and -- once ocean levels rose again -- these organisms revived those reefs which, during the glacial period, had been above water.

Furthermore, NASA has documented “around 100” glacial/interglacial cycles in the last 2.5 million years. All evidence suggests these cycles have produced very similar fluctuations in sea levels. Ergo, today’s tropical coral reefs have survived “around 100” episodes where they have ALL been ABOVE WATER!

How could anybody be so incredibly STUPID as to assert that a PERFECTLY NATURAL temperature increase of 0.7C OR an extremely tiny move towards the neutral side of the pH scale could threaten tropical coral reefs with extinction?

IT IS WAY BEYOND ABSURD! And, those who fall for this absurdity are WAY BEYOND IGNORANT!

“Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 2002 agreed with former Sen. Trent Lott's (R-Miss.) decision to resign his leadership role after Lott made what some felt were racist remarks at former Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party.

‘He had no alternative,’ said Reid at the time claiming, ‘If you tell ethnic jokes in the backroom, it's that much easier to say ethnic things publicly. I've always practiced how I play.’…

As liberal media members work overtime to spin racist comments Reid made about presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008, it's going to be very interesting to see how many recall Lott's resignation or what Reid said about the incident.”

“The question of whether John Coleman is an isolated skeptic or represents a larger community of skeptical TV weathercasters was one of several research motivations for a recent national survey of AMS weathercasters sponsored by the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF).”

Click the image for the most relevant finding:Click here for the BAMS article.Click here for more key findings & commentary.Click here to further refute the “scientific consensus” bunk.Click here & expose the “leader” of the IPCC.Click here for some basic climate change science.

This Wikipedia page is oft cited by alarmists as evidence of a mythical consensus among scientists which is ostensibly fully supportive of the IPCC and calls for governments to regulate CO2. That page includes a section which many falsely construe as evidence that American meteorologists are part of this mythical “consensus”. The Wikipedia page cites this statement from the AMS asserting that “[t]he changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities”. However, the polling data cited in this post clearly and directly demonstrates that only 24% of meteorologists polled share that view!

I strongly suspect that if ANY of the cited organizations were to conduct a comprehensive poll of all their members, they would find very little agreement with their “official” statements. And, that is precisely why -- without exception -- the “leadership” of these organizations has NOT conducted ANY such polling of their members (despite Dr. Bill Gray having openly challenged the AMS to “conduct a survey of its members”).

2) There is NO uniformity in the statements offered by various organizations. They are all over the map.

3) The TINY MINORITY of scientists who agree with the IPCC and calls for government to regulate CO2, are the ones who are mostly likely to directly profit (at tax payer expense) from the alarmism and/or the regulations.

“NPR does not receive direct funding from the federal government. Less than 2 percent of its annual budget comes from competitive grants from federally funded institutions.”

Click the image & read the rest of the non-apology:Click here to expose the NPR funding deception.Click here for more commentary.

NPR’s Alicia C. Shepard further suggests that NPR showed political balance “On Dec. 31, [when] Fiore took after Obama on npr.org.” Is Ms. Shepard SO ideologically blinkered that she TRULY BELIEVES political balance is achieved by:

1) Mocking Obama for -- in the eyes of Fiore -- not being enough of a leftwing extremist.

I might suggest that NPR find a new (and less ethically challenged) Ombudsman. But, I am certain the next one would be no better than this one. What I REALLY want is for the utterly dishonest and pathetically propagandistic NPR to STOP ROBBING ME AT GUNPOINT!

Friday, January 8, 2010

NOAA data indicate that the continental USA cooling trend accelerated by 32% in 2009. This trend has been in place for ELEVEN years now! At WHAT point will the utterly dishonest alarmists admit this is climate trend rather than a weather event?

The 1998 to 2008 cooling trend was 0.78F per decade.Click the image to enlarge it:

The 1998 to 2009 cooling trend was 1.03F per decade.Click the image to enlarge it:

1.03F / 0.78F = 1.32(a 32% acceleration in the cooling trend)Click here for more on the current cooling trend.Click here for some basic climate change science.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Click the image & read the story:Click here for some basic climate change science.Here in Steamboat Springs, the forecast calls for -22F tonight.At 10:40PM, it is already down to -12F.1/8/10 Update: -22F was, indeed, the low temperature this morning.

“C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb accused President Obama of using his network as a ‘political football’ during the presidential campaign, citing the president's broken pledge to televise health care reform negotiations on the nonpartisan channel which is devoted to covering Washington…

Lamb expressed disappointment that the White House has not lived up to that commitment.

He said the ‘only time’ the network has been allowed to cover the White House's involvement in the talks was a ‘one-hour’ event in the East Room which he described as a ‘show-horse’ affair.”